


Some Fortune That I Should Have Found

by stardustedknuckles



Series: Beauyasha College AU [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Modern AU, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Quiet Angst, Yearning, photographer yasha
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:55:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27428275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustedknuckles/pseuds/stardustedknuckles
Summary: Beau's been coming over casually for photography sessions, studying, and the hot sex that often follows at least one of those things for a few months now. The holidays are coming up, and Beau's leaving soon to spend a week at her parents. Except she showed up the day before for a photo session and fell asleep on Yasha instead, and she doesn't think she can let Beau go.Maybe she won't have to.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha
Series: Beauyasha College AU [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2024825
Comments: 8
Kudos: 218





	Some Fortune That I Should Have Found

**Author's Note:**

> Look yes I am a mess after last night's ep but I was already working on this and I wanted to live inside of it for a while longer. My modern/college AU is very cozy and I needed cozy. 
> 
> NOTE WITHIN NOTE: These are not in order necessarily, I'm just grouping them. Number 1 is first though.

Beau's boots were by the door, socks tucked inside. Her messenger bag leaned against them, still damp from the morning's rain. Across from the couch was the high backed plush chair they often curled up in to read together; the lavender of it and the light blue of Beau's jacket where it lay across the top of it reflected together in a kind of halo on the wall.

Beau herself was still asleep with her head on Yasha's thigh, one hand stretched in front of her and dangling just a little over the edge of the couch. Her eyes were still slightly puffy, but her expression had relaxed into a kind of true peace, dry lips parted just slightly as she rested under the watchful eye and tender, soothing fingers running lightly through her hair over and over.

She was so beautiful like this that it hurt Yasha to dwell on it, but she could do nothing else. It had taken Beau upwards of half an hour to let enough of the stress and the sadness inside of her pour out that she was finally too exhausted and wrung out to stay awake and apologize for it.

A shaft of light from the opposite window was creeping its way slowly up from her throat, and soon it would reach her eye and she would wake.

But for now she remained pliant and dreamless in Yasha's lap, hers to guard and to hold and to comfort. Yasha took in every detail of her relaxed like this, from the tiny cluster of damp and salty lashes spiked together to the shy freckles on her bare shoulder that were impossible to see when she was awake and moving. The muscles of her back and shoulders seemed melted into the curve of her, slightly curled as she was to fit her whole body on the cushions.

Yasha had coaxed her from her the seafoam green tank, the loose one that rippled in the slightest breeze, and kissed her way down from the inside of Beau's hipbone down the muscle of her thigh to her knee as she'd gently worked off the soft gray joggers. Her bra had been damp too, and she was curled up now on Yasha half in and out of spill of golden light with none of her armor but the soft black boxers that she'd once told Yasha made her feel ready for anything. She had dressed to meet the day, and it had taken her cruelly to task.

How perfect, how right it was, Yasha thought, that they were here now - the cracked pieces of Beau resting and mending together again, and Yasha the arbiter and the witness of the breathless and mundane little miracle that was a Beau with no guard but Yasha to keep her.

Even if her camera had been within reach, it would have felt fundamentally profane to spare a single thought for anything but the way she could just feel Beau's deep and steady breathing along the denim stretched tight over the top of her thigh. The ache that spread from Yasha's heart into her throat and fingertips was a deep and glowing thing, as steady a presence as Beau's slack arm where it still rested warm against the seam of Yasha's black pants.

The light was striped now across Beau's cheekbone, moving them almost imperceptibly to the end of this freeze frame they occupied together. Yasha felt a sharp tendril of protectiveness curl against her ribs - she wanted to hold her hand still over Beau's eye and spare her the waking, guard her rest for a little longer. _Forever_ , was the desperate thought that flicked across the back of her mind.

But she loved Beau for the way she took up the mantle of every new waking, and there was a kind of wonder in watching her begin to stir under Yasha's fingers. Yasha had lain on her back and watched stars fade through the tapestries of countless sunsets, and some of that whispered awe was there in the way Beau's eyelids fluttered and parted to reveal the sun-struck blue of her eye, wild for a moment in guileless sleep before Beau's spirit slipped into the space behind her iris and the warm statue of her pulled into a gentle inhale.

Yasha's fingertips drifted from the strands of Beau's hair to the shell of her ear, then down the fuzz of her cheek's curve to trace her lips. She allowed the slide of her fingertips to catch reverently on Beau's bottom lip and pull it open just that centimeter wider, chest tightening sharply with the slight hitch in Beau's breathing as her eyes shuddered closed again. Yasha's fingers continued down the path of Beau's chin to trace an invisible line along her pulse to her collarbone and back up to her shoulder.

Beau shivered just a little as Yasha's fingers swept from the inside of her bicep to her elbow, and her eye when she opened it again was marble bright in the vulnerable expression she was making as she slowly pieced together memories of how they got here and for how long she must have been defenseless under Yasha's watchful guard. Yasha watched the muscle of Beau's throat jump as she swallowed, the way her lips formed a kind of line as she wrestled with how much Yasha had seen versus how much she had been prepared to show.

It wasn't supposed to go like this, the two of them - they made a good team for Yasha's photo work and Beau's studying style, looked good together in bed. The rest was…Beau would call it weakness, maybe, but to Yasha it was simply forbidden.

Yasha traced quiet sigils and letters in the slow heat of the evening light that pooled on the soft underbelly of Beau's arm and forced her breathing to stay even as she waited for Beau's verdict. Likely, she had given too much too soon. Likely, she would stretch and play it off, toss a breezy and apologetic thanks to Yasha before getting dressed in something else and spending the rest of the evening trying not to look Yasha in the eye while they studied.

They were so fragile, these moments with Beau, and Yasha couldn't bring herself to feel as guilty as she perhaps should for spending this indeterminable amount of time simply basking in what it was to be so openly trusted in this way.

Beau shifted slightly, and though Yasha knew that the next movement would be up and away, she couldn't bring her traitor hand from Beau's skin until it was forced.

To her surprise, Beau's shoulder pulled back only enough so that she could lie half twisted in Yasha's lap and look straight up at her, expression conflicted but open as she searched Yasha's face for…judgment? Derision? Any sense of obligation? Yasha couldn't begin to guess. Slowly, without breaking eye contact, she brushed the back of her knuckles against Beau's cheekbone and barely suppressed the smallest sob of relief that bubbled up in her when Beau leaned into the touch, eyes always watching and waiting for the signal to run.

She took her cue to run from so many things that it seemed hopeless that anything Yasha did wouldn't set it off, so she simply held Beau's gaze and let her fingers curl closed so that just her thumb ran under one tear-tightened eye.

After several moments in which Yasha could feel some nameless tension rising between them, Beau's long, brown fingers came up to clasp Yasha's wrist with a gentleness that made her think that maybe she was as afraid of Yasha pulling away as she was of Beau doing the same. Her thumb paused its ministrations, and Beau's dry mouth worked for a second like she was coaxing words up from inside of her throat to breach the light of day.

"Sorry." Her voice was husky with sleep and dried tears, and Yasha couldn't stop the look of mild confusion she knew she must be making.

"For what?"

A finger twitched almost imperceptibly against the skin of Yasha's wrist, and it felt like a drumbeat. "We were supposed to do photo stuff today," she rasped. "And I just came in and cried all over you and you're too nice to wake me up. Now I won't be here for a week and the light's gone."

Yasha smiled in a way she hoped hid the ache blooming in her ribs. "I'm not sure about that." It was out before she could check herself. Beau stiffened, eyes hardening just slightly.

Yasha's heart plummeted. Too much, she'd blown it. Which was in itself such an odd realization because there hadn't been anything to blow. Just time twice stolen.

There was more she wanted to say, and though she hesitated at first, the knowledge that she was going to lose Beau again in the next few seconds gave her the grip she needed to get it out. "Why do you assume you're a burden?" she asked quietly, earnestly. "Is it so hard to imagine that I want you to stay?"

Beau's head turned away sharply, fierce eyes glittering as a muscle flexed in her jaw. Yasha heard the shudder of her inhale, saw it in the slight shift of her small breasts. It brought no end of wonder and affection to Yasha, that Beau could lie here with her in nothing at all and only feel vulnerable when asked to confront her own mind.

"It is hard." Her eyes stayed fixed on the front door, but her light grip on Yasha's wrist never flexed in spite of the tension running up and down her body. "It's hard, but it's not you. I just." She let go of Yasha. No tears came, but the pain on her face was nigh unbearable to witness.

Yasha slid her hand around to Beau's far cheek and applied the slightest of pressure, giving Beau the chance to push back and refuse. After a moment of hesitation, she came willingly, looking lost as her eyes found Yasha's. She smoothed a damp strand of hair from Beau's temple and said, "Tell me what you want, Beau. Please."

Beau's expression cracked helplessly. "I don't have that answer, Yash."

Yasha thought of the cold house that waited for Beau on holiday breaks, the way her texts all but faded out while she was there and the days it took her to come back to herself after she returned - the exoskeleton she had to peel off in layers just to be the electric spark of joy that Yasha knew. "Okay," she whispered. "Then just tell me if you want to stay."

A pained smile, a breath like she was coming up for air. Staying would mean trouble later. Staying would mean explanations to her parents, their incessant disappointment that draped on her shoulders like a shroud. Staying would mean Something More, and Yasha knew Beau felt the full weight of all of this as her teeth worried at her bottom lip.

"As long as you want," Yasha said. "Or we can just start with a week." I want you, she thought, but she knew better than to pitch it that way. Words were cheap, with Beau. Choice was everything.

"Yeah," Beau said, smile intact. "I want to. If that's okay."

Yasha's eyes burned. "Gods, yes," she said. When she leaned down to kiss Beau, it was a gentle and hesitant thing, nothing at all like the frantic way they met after a photoshoot left them both needy and flushed and wanting. Beau's hand came up to rest on the side of Yasha's face, and her cheek was wet with Yasha's tears when they pulled apart.

Beau touched her fingers to the dampness and looked up at Yasha with a kind of awe. "You really mean it."

Yasha coughed a laugh, wiping her eyes. "You have no idea."

Beau's fingertips rubbed her thumb absentmindedly as she looked up at the ceiling. "I don't really know what to do with that," she said. "But I think I'm happier than I've maybe ever been right now."

Yasha felt alive with light, like the evening had come simply because she had swallowed up all of the afternoon sunshine and had it bottled somewhere beneath her throat. "Me too," she said. "Let's just start with our week and keep going from there." She rested a splayed hand on Beau's ribcage and didn't miss the way her eyes flashed briefly in response.

"Yeah," she said, and the grin that fell out of her held none of the tension and uncertainty that shaded her every waking expression. It was the kind of grin she only gave after enough alcohol or sex, and in the absence of either Yasha felt like she'd just had both. "Holy shit," she said. "We have a whole week with no school and nowhere to be."

Beau met Yasha's next kiss with familiar earnest need, and Yasha returned her smile before nipping Beau's bottom lip playfully and pulling away to say, "You know, we're going to need to go to the store if we both want to eat past Wednesday."

Beau's eyes flickered and she sat up just long enough to pull herself onto Yasha's lap and bring in her knees to grip Yasha's thighs with a purpose. "We'll go Tuesday," she said. "Fuck tonight." From this position, she had to look slightly down at Yasha, and it was somehow even more intoxicating to have to lean up to meet her in their next kiss.

Yasha slid a hand up the inside of her thigh and enjoyed the little gasp into her mouth. "If you insist."

**Author's Note:**

> It starts with a week...oh hey I was thinking of a song when I wrote this! Not the one the title came from. It's instrumental, called "Baleen Morning" by Balmhorea. My friend described it to me in 2013 as "it sounds like how it feels to wake up after you cried yourself to sleep and it's a new morning and you feel all wrung out but clean and your love is running their fingers through your hair." 
> 
> I never forgot, and when I reached for comfort this week that image was in my head. So thanks, prettypriestess, you're a good bro. (She's also one of two people who got me into Critical Role and has the best taste about everything.)


End file.
